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Please bring back real crafting

I miss the excitement of trying different component combinations to discover new recipes. I also miss sub-components in weapon on armor crafting, sending serious time making awesome items. I truly enjoyed crafting when top end gear was made from a combination of items obtained from the environment, taking hours of exploring and harvesting from resource nodes (not drops). This game used to have one of the best crafting systems ever, but alas crafting has been essentially removed. All we do now is simple combines of raid and/or instance dropped items, which isn't crafting.

I'd also like to see a crafting revamp for the last tiers since it's just rep grinding now.
We have several departments that could be improved, the thrill of new tiers goes down when you realize you have to grind a full rep to be able to do the next and get the crafting recipes you need. Even doing that, crafting by itself has been reduced to a very few recipes in the last tiers compared to what we had until Rohan.

Guilds are useless after level 90-100, stats highrocketed from one high level zone to the other, making it very difficult or tedious for returning players to catch up on gear.

I'd like to see:

- Crafting guilds being useful at high tiers. Guild recipes for crafters, just to be able to craft landscape gear and higher gear like the good items we could craft a few years ago.
-Crafting dungeons like the ones we had in Moria, they were a good way to get materials. I saw something in the lines in the Entwash, but I felt the Moria ones were more complete.
-Crafting dailies? Why not? If some of those were not level-tied it would be even better.
-Higher crafting tiers added to the auction house, right now it only features until level 9.
-A farmers guild with exclusive recipes for achieving the appropriate ranks.
-Decoration recipes added to crafting tiers again. They were removed when the Westfold tier came. The last housing recipe I have on my Historian it's a Burnt Orange Wall paint (Supreme tier, up to lvl 65).
-Dye recipes for the Anórien, Doomfold and Ironfold tiers from landscape drops, and now that we talk about that...

Crafting before Rohan was far more diverse and entertaining. It was worth getting it high and investing in it because it was very rewarding. When Gondor came, crafting was severely cutted again, turning it into an essence grindfest and twisting it into something I don't know where to grab. I miss the old crafting fondly, it was something I liked doing in this game very much. Look at all the crafting guides, they are outdated and this very subforum is tagged as "Old".

I'm sure I'm missing a lot in here but the wall of text would be too big otherwise (the old good farmer recipes come to mind, now oversimple with the same animations in all of them ).

Crafting up until level 100 is AMAZING! I have always been able to kit myself out with something decent.

I haven't needed anything higher level yet, but it is sad to think that it is going to be like this. Surely there should be at the least, say, a set of armour for every five levels or so. Is there not even this? I have noticed the Doomfold tier doesn't have much in the way of auto-bestowed recipes, which doesn't bode well.

I would like to see guild rep continue through the tiers, with decent recipes for armour etc. Guild membership is, after all, a reason (albeit a lesser one revenue-wise) to sub or buy points...

I pretty much gave up on crafting since the changes from Mordor on. I would love to see them bring back the old system. As a crafter, spending hours looking for the resources to craft an item and barter for the recipe with tokens only to find I then need an item gained in a raid pretty must destroyed the joy of crafting for me.

The Lonely Mountain Band
Pouncival-Rank 15 aroo-Leader of the Pouncing Pwny
We Pounce Because We Care

After having played it for several months, I really enjoy the crafting system in Elder Scrolls Online.

They have crafting levels. 1-10, 11-20 etc. In ESO, weapon and armor crafters can already craft each piece of gear as soon as they progress into the tier. The main thing in that game is the ton of racial styles. You need to acquire the consumable in order to be able to craft a piece of gear in a certain racial style. And you need a specific ingredient in order to do it. For instance - 15 ingots in order to craft a sword and 1 adamant in order to craft that sword in the dwarven style.

With their alchemy and cook professions (provisioner) there are a ton of recipes that buff combinations of stats. And you acquire them as drops in multiple ways.

And they also have levels of gear. white, green, purple etc. You can "improve" the quality of your piece of gear at crafting stations.

Also, a big thing that I didn't realize until I popped back into LOTRO the other day? You can deconstruct your gear and get random crafting mats related to the piece deconned.

They also have crafting dailies. You log in for 5 minutes and do your dailies. You are rewarded with crafting xp and gold and random mats for each craft you did the daily in and a chance at random recipe drops. It's a good system.

ESO has levels of quality gear. You have regular crafted gear, then you have crafted gear that is done at certain locations that creates set pieces. Set pieces are a big thing in ESO. Then above all those you have your group dungeon, raid gear. It all seems to work really well.

Crafting up until level 100 is AMAZING! I have always been able to kit myself out with something decent.

I haven't needed anything higher level yet, but it is sad to think that it is going to be like this. Surely there should be at the least, say, a set of armour for every five levels or so. Is there not even this? I have noticed the Doomfold tier doesn't have much in the way of auto-bestowed recipes, which doesn't bode well.

I would like to see guild rep continue through the tiers, with decent recipes for armour etc. Guild membership is, after all, a reason (albeit a lesser one revenue-wise) to sub or buy points...

Unfortunately, The latest crafting adds have done more to minimize crafting.

1) The important ingredient for the new Vales of Anduin recipes require Artifacts of the Vales, which are BoA (bad). That means only toons that are at level cap and are in the Vales can use them.
2) to get Artifacts of the Vales, you need to barter Rimes of the Anvil, only available via drops in the Anvil Raid. At least these can be traded and sold. But, AH prices are at least 400+ gps at this time. If I remember correctly that is not unreasonable compared to the special ingredients required in SoA.

From all of the changes recently, I have to assume that all of the changes are to encourage completion of all zones (to get the max Virtue xp), and to guide all players to get to the end-game zones.

This will eliminate lower level crafting toons that are fairly common in many MMORPGs.

I miss the excitement of trying different component combinations to discover new recipes. I also miss sub-components in weapon on armor crafting, sending serious time making awesome items. I truly enjoyed crafting when top end gear was made from a combination of items obtained from the environment, taking hours of exploring and harvesting from resource nodes (not drops). This game used to have one of the best crafting systems ever, but alas crafting has been essentially removed. All we do now is simple combines of raid and/or instance dropped items, which isn't crafting.

Please bring back real crafting.

Granted I just returned so I may be rusty and unaware of new features. But I totally agree that high level crafting is missing something. If I'm going to get no joy of finding dwarrrowgleam shards in ordinary nodes like any normal crafting level since the beginning of time, and I have to grind instances to get components, then meh. And if putting shards into nodes again means it's too easy to make essences, then how about a barter system for essences and not sacrificing crafting for essences. Essences are temporary needs. There will be a better tier later. I don't want to farm outleveled instances in the future just to get essences for my alts later.

Making stonehelm gear for my alts is beyond painful. Emerald shards were hard to get, but at least you knew you could get 1-2 every three hours of focused harvesting.

It's also weird that early int he game we had secondary components which required cooperation or many alts. And now that we have alts that came make the secondary components, the crafting has changed to eliminate it. Why take away the joy and reward of having leveled our alts? It makes "progress" feel pointless.

Unfortunately, The latest crafting adds have done more to minimize crafting.

1) The important ingredient for the new Vales of Anduin recipes require Artifacts of the Vales, which are BoA (bad). That means only toons that are at level cap and are in the Vales can use them.

Maybe it's because you're using "toons" instead of "characters" but on my characters, nothing is bound:

2) to get Artifacts of the Vales, you need to barter Rimes of the Anvil, only available via drops in the Anvil Raid. At least these can be traded and sold. But, AH prices are at least 400+ gps at this time. If I remember correctly that is not unreasonable compared to the special ingredients required in SoA.

Reginnarr

120 Beorning
Landroval

You also don't have to do the entire raid. You just need to do the mini bosses. You can go in on an undergeared player and contribute what you can (as long as the raid has geared people to pull the rest of the weight) and come out with a chance at rimes and a guaranteed 2 dwarrowgleam shards.

I barter recipes with my higher level characters and pass them off to my lower level crafting alts. Nothing stops you from doing that. The recipes, the ingredients, etc... are all unbound.

Chromite/Grumbletocks/Grumbletunes/Schrade on Landroval, Chromite on Arkenstone, Appendage on Brandywine

It is not just end game crafting that needs an overhaul but the whole crafting system in general. I have rolled several new toons since Mordor came out and have leveled the highest into the early Rohan areas. Not once have I needed to craft any equipment for these alts relying completely on landscape drops and quest rewards. Part of the reason I created these alts was to give my higher leveled characters with maxed out crafting guild access something to craft. I even tried to craft various items to sell on AH over the last several years but they sporadically sell at best.

Unfortunately, as I began to level these new alts I noticed that whatever equipment gained through normal game play was adequate enough. Now I am leveling them to see just how far I can go before needing any type of crafted gear? (My highest leveled alt in this group of alts is currently 71 and is exclusively equipped in landscape and quest gear.)

Hobbit presents has too added much to the demise of crafters, especially all the armorer professions. With all the rare, incomparable and legendary mathom-hunters armor I have collected over the years I have outfitted most of my higher level toons with these armors. I still have tons of unopened rare and incomparable boxes lying in vaults gathering dust, enough to outfit all my alts should I decide to do so...again leaving my armorer professions with even more cobwebs.

Also, another thanks to Hobbits presents I now have enough universal toolkits laying around that I have no need to craft crafting tools for gathering mats for any characters I have below level 55. Thank you Hobbit presents!

My jewelers have also suffered due to drops from the old loot boxes that included several pieces of jewelry that were pretty much better than crafted at a comparable level. (I don't open the new boxes in protest to the <whole must buy appropriate keys from store> thing but that is a topic for another thread...)

I do however, use food from time to time for increased survivor-ability. My cooks and sometimes historians (for scrolls) are the only professions that get used now occasionally.

Crafting, in general, is indeed in a sad state of affairs and in desperate need of repair! But it doesn't seem that any of the devs that play their game craft as a major aspect of their game play so, no use in holding my breath...

Maybe it's because you're using "toons" instead of "characters" but on my characters, nothing is bound:

You also don't have to do the entire raid. You just need to do the mini bosses. You can go in on an undergeared player and contribute what you can (as long as the raid has geared people to pull the rest of the weight) and come out with a chance at rimes and a guaranteed 2 dwarrowgleam shards.

I barter recipes with my higher level characters and pass them off to my lower level crafting alts. Nothing stops you from doing that. The recipes, the ingredients, etc... are all unbound.

Then the information on the Wiki must be using either beta icons and descriptions, since the Wiki definitely shows them as BOA.

That alleviates one issue, but i still means that you would have to get into a learning or beginning raid, I haven't any starting up recently. Most if not all are targeted on T2 & T3.

I really dislike the artifacts being bartered for Rimes, and I say this as a person who raids regularly, if not frequently and has had no problem getting their grubby little hands on Rimes. I still don't like it.

The artifacts of the vale should have been put into the protectors of vales barter people who you take the daily quests from.

*edit* Forgot to specify: they should be in the protectors of the vales barterpeople, available to barter for beorning and/or woodmen tokens.

The real issue is from my POV is that making crafting another offshoot of raiding is discouraging crafters from bothering any more. There are many that play this game and many others that never set foot inside a raid mostly because they do not enjoy raiding. Many of these are crafters and explorers, or musicians and roleplayers. They enjoy crafting and now that has been turned into another raid grind. Please bring crafting back to being crafting.

The Lonely Mountain Band
Pouncival-Rank 15 aroo-Leader of the Pouncing Pwny
We Pounce Because We Care

It's not a good thing that the quickest way to get dwarrowgleam shards is by doing Anvil sideboss runs. If shards had a decent drop rate on landscape or the resource instance quests were paying up more than 1-3 per week then people wouldn't feel the need to farm sidebosses for shards. Especially because you now need multiple shards to get a decent essence. It's very resource-consuming and it has been done on purpose.

And, just a really personal nitpick: the base mithrin essences not being able to be turned into malleable essences only adds to this problem.

It's not just this game. It seems that a few mature MMORPGs are increasingly "gating" high-end crafting materials behind raids and such. It's mitigated a little if they are account-bound and more so if they are unbound and tradeable, but it still seems to prevent crafting progression unless one is an end-game raider. It's unfortunate. I get that you don't want the best materials dropping like candy on Halloween, but there should be ways to get them other than raiding.

Also, it's a shame that the crafters guild are pretty much useless above level 100 or so.

I'd also like to see a crafting revamp for the last tiers since it's just rep grinding now.
We have several departments that could be improved, the thrill of new tiers goes down when you realize you have to grind a full rep to be able to do the next and get the crafting recipes you need. Even doing that, crafting by itself has been reduced to a very few recipes in the last tiers compared to what we had until Rohan.

Guilds are useless after level 90-100, stats highrocketed from one high level zone to the other, making it very difficult or tedious for returning players to catch up on gear.

I'd like to see:

- Crafting guilds being useful at high tiers. Guild recipes for crafters, just to be able to craft landscape gear and higher gear like the good items we could craft a few years ago.
-Crafting dungeons like the ones we had in Moria, they were a good way to get materials. I saw something in the lines in the Entwash, but I felt the Moria ones were more complete.
-Crafting dailies? Why not? If some of those were not level-tied it would be even better.
-Higher crafting tiers added to the auction house, right now it only features until level 9.
-A farmers guild with exclusive recipes for achieving the appropriate ranks.
-Decoration recipes added to crafting tiers again. They were removed when the Westfold tier came. The last housing recipe I have on my Historian it's a Burnt Orange Wall paint (Supreme tier, up to lvl 65).
-Dye recipes for the Anórien, Doomfold and Ironfold tiers from landscape drops, and now that we talk about that...

Crafting before Rohan was far more diverse and entertaining. It was worth getting it high and investing in it because it was very rewarding. When Gondor came, crafting was severely cutted again, turning it into an essence grindfest and twisting it into something I don't know where to grab. I miss the old crafting fondly, it was something I liked doing in this game very much. Look at all the crafting guides, they are outdated and this very subforum is tagged as "Old".

I'm sure I'm missing a lot in here but the wall of text would be too big otherwise (the old good farmer recipes come to mind, now oversimple with the same animations in all of them ).

I'm very disappointed in the lack of even the most basic recipes. Used to be there were auto-granted recipes for yellow and purple gear and it was fairly easy to get teal recipes. This left the orange recipes for Guild recipes. At the minimum it let you pad out weak spots in your gear and offered some cosmetic options.

I hope they really do a solid revamp with the expansion. A ground-up re-write would be the best, but I have no expectations for that, just hopes.

Best shields, offhands and crossbows are crafted items.
So you got your combination of drops and crafted items.
Not to forget that you need to craft the essences who h you need for your gear.
And the class items are crafted too.

The crafting in lotro was never the greatest but it was useful and a lot better than it is now. Since Mordor crafting is basically useless. I use top tier crafting only for Essences which take a ridiculous amount of time to grind considering they basically have garbage stats. Other than that I use the mats to grind out the tier and thats it. In short current crafting in this game is boring and useless because it has been neglected totally for so long. If half the effort was made on crafting as was made with the lotro store crafting would be the best in any mmo ever.
combining random mats to learn recipes even rare ones would be a fun idea but i'm sure the devs would stick one or two mats in a raid to ruin it for a large portion of the players.

This is just one deficiency in this game that will lead to another server merge in the next year or two. I started playing this game with 10 people in beta. All of them are lifetime and could play for free anytime. Not one of these people has even logged on since helms deep. They loved this game and it would certainly alarm me if I was the ssg ceo if people don't even want to play with FREE VIP. Basically groupers and raiders get everything and the casual player gets screwed. The current state of the game for more casual players has become unfun because of a useless crafting system and a brutal grind for what amounts to garbage armour, essences and off hand weapons. I love a good grind when the reward isn't in a steaming pile on the floor. Even the loot system in this game is complete garbage. As a more casual player literally the only loot item of any value I keep is the few universal potions I get a year and some mats. The rest of the loot I get is either sold or destroyed. There is nothing surprising or usable or unusual in the loot at all. There is no reason why great armour cant drop in the open world at random with great rarity. Loot should be exciting not simply a hassle to manage and sell.

The bottom line is that the devs will do what they want but alienating certain types of players or allowing crafting to decay into what it has will only harm the game in the end. Even the raiders wont be able to overcome the odds when SSG's money dries up. I keep hearing we have lots of solo content. I say BULL. Show me one solo or even duo level 120 instance with tiers 1 through 5 with better armour or crafting mats. Doesn't exist because the only solo content in this game is in grinding the levels and social stuff. There is literally no challenge at all for the solo player in this game other than perhaps mordor. I say perhaps because it really was not as challenging as some people make it seem. The closest thing to a challenge I have had since mordor is the giants in the vales of anduin but there is zero point in going there once the quests are done because the loot is garbage.

The absolute least that the devs could do is indicate on recipes before you buy them that they require a raid item so us casual people dont waste our meagre rewards on them. Sure the rewards spent on these recipes are minor but it's angering to buy something only to find out it's useless to you and clutters up the crafting panel.

The bottom line is that Lotro is an aging game in decline whether ssg likes it or not. It just doesn't make sense to treat certain types of players great and treat other types like they are something stuck on the bottom of your shoe. At this point I would not buy future expansions. I always buy expansions right away for every mmo I have played but I just can't see enough reasons to pay for one in Lotro at least right now.

I am only one person but I am proof that there is a financial impact to this. The impact effects the company and all the players in the game including raiders. Eventually there will be more like me unwilling to buy future content and the game will die ultimately effecting everyone. SSG should be trying to please groupers, raiders, casual playes, crafters, pvp rather than throwing away groups of people by treating them like #### intentionally and yes solo players are being treated like #### right now in lotro and it's no accident. If this game was dependant 100 percent on raiders it would go bankrupt. Same for groupers and same for solo/casual players. Without all types of players somewhat pleased this game will go in a bad direction. I don't want to see this happen. I want lotro to thrive for a long time but in it's current state I can't see why I would want to put any more money into it.

SSG needs to do more to bring in new players and less to encourage long time players to leave or not want to buy future content.